The least common hands are the suited hands. Each pocket pair have six possible combinations.įor example A-A: A♥-A♦, A♥-A♣, A♥-A♠, A♦-A♣, A♦-A♠, A♣-A♠. The next most common hands are the pairs.

The most common hands are offsuited hands. Number of combinations for different hand categories These are big hands, but the value of them decreases when a queen, a king or an ace hits the table. Other kind of 'problem hands' are J-J and T-T. One is that it's very easy to overplay some cards, like A-K. Which hand that works in practical play depends on different factors. The list will not necessarily correspond to which starting hands that win most in practical play – a good term for this is ”equity-realization”, which is more about the effective odds than general playability. General playing instructions: Play in late positions and sometimes in middle positions depending on the circumstances. General playing instructions: Play in most situations and normally raise and sometimes re-raise. General playing instructions: Play in almost all situations and normally raise or re-raise. General playing instructions: Play in almost all situations and normally raise, re-raise or 4-bet. (King), Q (Queen), J, (Jack), T (Ten), s (suited) In the choice of starting hands, you must also consider how many players there are on the table, which structure you are playing in and your own playing style (other articles on this site focus on these subjects). A-A (two aces) are clearly the best starting hand and there are never an option to fold with it, which may be the case for other hands in 'Category 1'. The categories below are only based on the objective strength of the starting hands therefore, it's not sure that a specific play should be applied on all starting hands in the same category. This gives an oversight and that method are going to be used here also. Dividing different hands into categories could be helpful for the ranking. Which starting hands a player should play is something that has been discussed in many books about poker. There are 1 326 different starting hands in Texas hold'em, but if you leave out the different color constellations there are totally 169.

Best starting hand in texas holdem